Governor Schwarzenegger told Geraldo Rivera of Fox News Thursday morning it was because of the lessons learned from Katrina.
I don’t buy that though it’s clear that Southern Californians got a higher quality of government response.
The Katrina crowd seemed like a bunch of whiners. On the other hand, a lot more of them died and they faced far harsher conditions than the evacuees from our fires.
The largely unspoken but crucial difference in the response to these messes is race.
Much of the black Katrina crowd said the government was out to get them (while few non-black Katrina evacuees said that) while I have not heard any such sentiment from a Southern Californian (though some may say the government was delinquent in their duties none has said the government started and encouraged these fires).
Many blacks in the Spike Lee HBO documentary talked about the dynamiting of the levees, something for which there is no evidence.
Conspiracy theories may well be most prevalent in black America. A columnist calls these "the life blood of the African-American community," and a clinical psychologist notes that there is "probably no conspiracy involving African-Americans that was too far-fetched, too fantastic, or too convoluted." She finds four recurring themes, all centered on the U.S. government: it uses blacks as guinea pigs, imposes bad habits on them, targets their leaders, and decimates their population.
But the sense of being surrounded by evildoers shows up in many ways, ranging from the petty to the cosmic, and does not always focus on the government. In a minor but indicative example, a new and inexpensive drink named Tropical Fantasy appeared throughout the northeastern United States in September 1990 and sold extremely well in low-income neighborhoods during the next half year. The fact that most of its Brooklyn, New York, employees were black made the beverage the more appealing. But anonymous leaflets turned up in black areas in early 1991, warning that the soft drink was manufactured by the Ku Klux Klan and contained "stimulants to sterilize the black man." Although journalistic and police investigations found this accusation to be completely fraudulent, it struck a chord among consumers, and sales plummeted by 70 percent. Other products, including Kool and Uptown cigarettes, Troop Sport clothing, Church’s Fried Chicken, and Snapple soft drinks, suffered from similar slanders about the KKK and causing impotence, and they too went into a commercial tailspin.
Then there’s the crappy quality of care at any hospital named Martin Luther King and poor quality of life at any boulevard named Martin Luther King.
Here’s a link to the Los Angeles Times coverage of the Martin Luther King – Harbor hospital:
"Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital is set to close down soon after failing a federal inspection. The action comes after a new round of questions about care, including one in which a woman writhed on the floor of the emergency room lobby for 45 minutes before dying of a perforated bowel. No one stepped in to help her. The Willowbrook hospital, once known as King/Drew, has been plagued by allegations of poor treatment almost since its inception 35 years ago."
Would you like to be treated at any hospital named after Martin Luther King? Would you like to hang out on any boulevard named after Martin Luther King?
State health investigators are looking into whether the hospital permitted unauthorized research studies to be performed on children with respiratory problems. The studies involve "bronching" of children (placing flexible tubes into the bronchi with attached camera through the mouth and trachea). A hospital board member, Dr. J. Carlos Maggi, is one of the lead physicians conducting the study. Families of patients have complained that they were misled when told that the children needed the procedure.
Chaim Amalek responds:
One difference might be that these fires are sweeping areas like Malibu that are home to millionaires and billionaires and virtually no poor people. The lower 9th ward of New Orleans, on the other hand, did not contain many of the super-rich on the eve of Katrina’s visit.
I’m no bleeding heart, but criminy – weren’t you once on track to become some sort of political economist? You should know better.
Fred emails:
American welfare policy has developed an attitude of helplessness on behalf of African Americans, and their own culture has compounded this problem with lawlessness. Looking at the news, one is impressed with the community spirit and volunteerism in LA/San Diego. It was utterly missing in New Orleans.
I was also impressed with the competence of the Schwarzenegger’s administration. The Louisiana and New Orleans Democratic governments were incompetent.
Having said all that, Fox News aired a comment by Jamie Lee Curtis, who pointed out that building homes in a dry chapparel climate is asking for trouble. At the risk of agreeing with a celebrity, she is correct. In like manner, when one builds a city below sea level and right next to a lake that is above sea level, in hurricane territory, one is asking for trouble. Both problems are man-made.
…The next time you’re up this way, why don’t we chat about this issue at a coffee shop on Martin Luther King Blvd. in Oakland. I’ll buy if I don’t get mugged on the way up there.
